


Wherein a Boy and a Young Lady Discuss Their Commonalty

by petrarchbaelish



Category: Belle (2013), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Gen, Period-Typical Racism, character childhoods, i wanna say wip but it probably won't get retooled
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 04:32:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6500947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petrarchbaelish/pseuds/petrarchbaelish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stephen is disappointed when Walter is sent to school without him, and is instead pressed into the beginning of his service for the Pole household. For his first large dinner, he attends on a singular young woman, and finds her sympathies.<br/>This would have been published on April 17 but I'm not going to have a computer then, so happy birthday tumblr user tearsofthemushroom!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wherein a Boy and a Young Lady Discuss Their Commonalty

**Author's Note:**

> This work is set in 1780: canonically Sir Walter is 15, historically Dido Elizabeth Belle is 19, and per my headcanon Stephen is 12.  
> DON'T OPEN UNTIL CHRISTMAS/April 17.
> 
> Dido is based more on the film than historical evidence, and frankly I haven't seen that in a good while so she might be a little bolder than in the film. This notion just struck me a while back and while I wanted to write it, I doubt I could give it the full treatment it deserves.

November 1780  


Cook had been barking orders about the bustling scullery for some time now, long enough that Stephen had neglected to listen. Her name, he learned, was Mrs Boyle--which amused him nearly as much as if she had been called Mrs Cook—but still in his mind she was still simply Cook. Cook had always seemed to Stephen to be something like a kettle, or a stewing-pot, red-faced and round, with a tendency to steam about the ears, if he squinted. He had been spending more and more of his time with the downstairs set, ever since Sir William had dismissed Walter’s tutor and sent the boy to Dr Swishtail’s academy to spend the day edifying himself amongst peers, if not the peerage.  


Stephen, then, no longer spent his mornings with Greek and Latin grammar, nor were his afternoons any longer full of history or mathematics. His mind was being laid fallow, he thought, for a purpose not yet clear to him but which had for some time gestated in his mind; the inevitable day when his path and Walter’s would part. This was not an unexpected thing, but it was still melancholy—Walter was further along in his studies than Stephen, but he had admitted to Stephen privately that he thought his work at Stephen’s age was somewhat inferior to Stephen’s present efforts, though of course he could not know without asking Mr Nuttall, which they agreed would be a foolish thing to do, so soon after his dismissal.  


“But this still does not explain why I cannot go to Dr Swishtail’s, does it?” The boys were hiding in the library from Sir William, who would invariably quiz the nearest bystander on his or her studies and, failing this, pester them with amusing riddles.  


“If it were only a question of merits, no, I do not think it does,” Walter agreed, inspecting his shoe-buckle as he propped his foot on the desk before him. “but it is mostly a question of money, I think. Sir William engaged Mr Nuttall at one price for both of us, but Dr Swishtail makes no such allowances. And I think we are poor, here, or at least in debt.”  


“Then it would be better to send no one at all!”  


“Yes, but as Sir William’s heir I’ve got to. He told me as much. That I’m to take the seat in Parliament, some day, and an uneducated man can’t sit in the House, and so on. But I say, Stephen, that you can spend all the time you like with the books and such, I wouldn’t mind a bit.”  


There the discussion ended, Walter departed in the morning to Dr Swishtail’s and stayed there for two weeks, until he was called home to sup with the Earl of Mansfield and his family—an occasion which had been in the making these last three days. Cook had impressed upon the staff that this was her regency on Lady Pole’s behalf and she reserved the right to employ any one she needed--to aid in shelling, mincing, boiling, skimming, peeling, whisking and any of a score other things she might find needing doing. Thus Stephen had spent most of his time in the kitchen, tending fires, stirring pots and on one occasion rubbing Cook’s gnarled red hands that she might continue using them. By day’s end he was sweltered, sooty, and tired, but come morning he could leap from his narrow bed to start again, thinking, “it is only two days until Walter comes home,” or “it is only a day until Walter comes,” and at last, “it is today”. Today his friend would arrive, full of new knowledge, with books he was free to read and stories of other boys who had done the same, and after supper they would relay to one another all they had done in the fortnight before.  


“Stephen! You’ve a look in your eye I mislike, did you hear me?”  


“Yes, Mrs Boyle—er, no, Mrs Boyle.”  


“There is a Miss Lindsay suppin’ here tonight, alone in Lady Pole’s sitting room. You’re to bring her meal, and serve her elder-wine as she asks you to. You understand me?”  


“…Is she not well? Will I be bringing her an especial supper, ma’am?”  


“No, just the same as everyone, boy. Sally’s laid a little aside in a separate service—haven’t you, Sally? She has, thank God. Now go along with the wine, and John will carry the tray up, unless you can manage it.”  


Stephen said he could.  


He had never been in Lady Pole’s sitting-room before; even Walter had been prevented, as it was full of fine upholstery and china and Walter was always clumsy, and only getting worse. It was with a small, secret pride that he knocked softly on the door and entered with his little tray of elder-wine in a Bordeaux glass. What secrets he was now privy to, knowing the walls were papered with nosegays of dianthus, trailing white ribbons, and the sofa faced a white-painted mantel with a well-blackened grate and a faded screen with a pastoral scene of young shepherds sleeping the day away while their flock grazed placidly by a river! How the tall, narrow windows overlooking the street, so murky and morose from without, cast the room in a hazy dusk-light, silhouetting its contents in gentle shadow. He lingered so on these details that it was a long moment before he realised there was any one else in the room at all.  


Stephen’s was not the only black face in England, he knew. Even Harley-street has Sarah, who came twice a month to help in the laundry, and the footman Wallace who was Cook’s particular friend; in the market and in the streets he could find scores of people like himself. Yet he could not say he had ever seen a Lady like him, refined and elegantly appointed as Miss Lindsay was. Her gown, at first seemed the soft, silvery-white of winter fog, but on closer inspection appeared a whisper of violet in the folds of her skirt, where shadows would be. The ribbons trimming her bodice and flowers in her hair were fine as any Lady Pole had worn, if not better (for he imagined this lady, being of the Mansfields, was not so very deep in debt). He meant to ask if she would like to take the elder-wine, and her dinner service would arrive shortly, yet he could only manage to blurt how beautifully dressed she was.  


“As are you,” she replied with good humour, gesturing to his livery.  


“Thank you, miss, it’s what all the serving-men have here, miss.” Remembering the elder-wine he raised his tray with its decanter and glass. “Elder-wine before your meal, miss? It will be here very shortly.”  


“Yes, I believe I will, thank you.” Miss Lindsay watched the boy pour with a mild interest, and when he had finished, raised the glass, smiling. “What shall I toast to? England, perhaps, and the king’s good health. And you, with your fine blue livery. What is your name?”  


“Stephen, miss. Stephen Black.”  


“Then to you, Stephen, and your prosperity. You may go and fetch my supper now, if it is ready. What is being served?”  


“Duck, miss, with fried parsnips and artichoke, and onion-sauce, and—and caraway cake to follow after. If you would prefer a different fare, miss, perhaps less heavy—“  


“Why should I like different fare?” She looked at Stephen with a pointed curiosity.  


“Well, miss, no-body said so, but I thought you might be supping alone as you were unwell, and the food might be too heavy.”  


“Oh, Stephen. I sup alone, but I am perfectly well. I will be joining my family and the Poles after dinner, naturally. It is the same at home in Kenwood House. You see,” she laughed, “my father made me better than a servant, but my mother made me less than other ladies. I think you may know, Stephen, how a dark face changes your station in life. No one would lift a hand to me, nor harass me as they do other women of my colour, but I am always going to be different. I will be passed over for quadrilles when any other girl will find herself overburdened with suitors. Some people—genteel people, mind you, people of status!—will have no qualm in outlining to me the faults of my complexion, how it is only their stern English manners which force them to civility. And I will forever sup alone, on excellent plate. Oh--! I've gone on, have I not? Please, Stephen, hurry along with the dinner-service, I should like to join my family and the Poles as soon as they are finished.”  


Stephen bowed, and ran through the empty corridors back to the kitchen, where Miss Lindsay’s dinner waited by the hearth. The tray was nearly too large for him to lift, but his determination saw him up the stairs, down the hall and to the doorway of Lady Pole’s sitting room (which he knocked upon with his forehead, for lack of a better device.) With an unpracticed hand he set out the lady’s plate, the arrangement of which Miss Lindsay occasionally corrected for him. While she served herself from the silver dishes of savoury duck, parsnips and artichoke, she quizzed him about his life, how he had come to live at Harley-street, and any other detail which came to mind. When he mentioned Dr Swishtail’s, she tutted.  


“And so until now you have been his—Walter, was it?—Walter’s equal, and now here you are, toiling away in the kitchens and serving me. Tuh!”  


“I knew it was to happen one day or another, Miss. Sir William has been very gracious in caring for me, since my very birth. I know a good deal more than most boys my age, even white ones.”  


“Still, Stephen. Simply because this is the way of things, must we do nothing about it? I find that a perplexing way to think, when you are so wronged by them.”  


Stephen did not then know whether to agree with her—though in his heart he thought he might—and so he simply nodded, and murmured something indistinguishable even to him. Miss Lindsay was delighted with his having an education, and had him practise conversing with her in Latin while she finished her supper. When he returned with her dirtied plates, Sally informed him the families were to enjoy their dessert in the parlour with the pianoforte, as Miss Murray (another of Sir William’s guests) had volunteered to play while they ate. Thus dismissed, he went to peer in Lady Pole’s sitting room, and found it entirely empty, with only the lit candles and fireplace to show any one had been there at all.


End file.
